Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail
From: "J.O. Aho" <user@example.net>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.php
Subject: Re: Stripping a JSON of extra characters in PHP
Date: Sun, 5 Feb 2023 16:14:32 +0100
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On 01/02/2023 16:45, The Doctor wrote:
>  From https://developer.moneris.com/livedemo/checkout/preload_req/guide/dotnet
> 
> I need a JSON as follows:
> 
> {
> 	"store_id":"moneris",
> 	"api_token":"hurgle",

For console output:
echo json_encode($object, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);

For html output:
<pre>
<?php echo nl2br(json_encode($yourArrayOrObject, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT)); ?>
</pre>

If you have an already json encoded string, then you need to use 
json_decode to get an object and then encode the object to prettify the 
json.


> [{"store_id":"store3","api_token":"yesguy","checkout_id":"chkt23NGFtore3","txn_total":"126.00","environment":"qa","action":"preload"},[{"cart":[[[{"items":{"url":"https:\/\/www.pdsolutions.ca\/images\/newwhiteheader.png","description":"Agricultural Health Study","product_code":"AHS-1298","unit_cost":60,"quantity":"1"},"subtotal":60,"tax":{"amount":3,"description":"GST","rate":"0.05"}},{"items":{"url":"https:\/\/www.pdsolutions.ca\/images\/newwhiteheader.png","description":"Pesticide Applicator Records","product_code":"PAR-1302","unit_cost":60,"quantity":"1"},"subtotal":60,"tax":{"amount":3,"description":"GST","rate":"0.05"}}]]]}],[{"contact_details":{"first_name":"Dave","last_name":"Yadallee","email":"dog@nk.ca","phone":"7809999999"}}],[{"billing_details":{"address_1":"","city":"","province":"","country":"CA","postal_code":""}}]]
>                  
> 	       How can I carefully strip unnecessary punctuation?

The unnecessary [] that you get is for you use an array to store things 
inside, use a class object instead.

Here is a small example, where only the cart is an array in the json:

--- start of php ---
$a = new class{};
$a->store_id = "123";
$a->api_token = "432";
$a->cart = array();
// add item to cart that cast an array to object
$a->cart[] = (object)[ "value" => "12.01", "item" => "banana" ];
// add item to cat that is an undefined object
$itemObj = new class{};
$itemObj->value = "10.02";
$itemObj->item = "apple";
$a->cart[] = $itemObj;
echo json_encode($a, JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);
--- eof ---

Only use array when you are to have a collection of items, for example a 
shopping cart, but do not use array when you have a single item, then 
better to use an object of some sort, for your example I would actually 
create classes that describes the json, you will of course have nested 
objects in the end.

-- 
  //Aho